Articles by Rufus Ward
Ask Rufus: Columbus, an architectural mixing pot of style
The site where Columbus now sits has for hundreds of years been a cultural crossroads. That diversity of people led to Columbus having an almost
Ask Rufus: The Muckraker
A couple of years ago I wrote a column about a family trip my mother took to the coast in the 1920s. It was an almost yearly summer vacation spent with Kimbrough cousins at Aston Hall, their beach house at Mississippi City between Gulfport and Biloxi.
Ask Rufus: Columbus, Alabama, established 1819
Over the past couple of weeks several people have asked me about whether this year is the bicentennial of Columbus becoming a town since Columbus was chartered in Mississippi in 1821.
Ask Rufus: A proper Southern porch
There is nothing like a good front porch in the summer. In the South it is traditionally a favorite gathering place to visit with family and friends, hear a good story and enjoy a cool beverage on a hot day or muggy evening.
Ask Rufus: Riding into Rome on the back of a tank
The D-day invasion of June 6, 1944, is the event of that date and time that captures the public imagination. There was, however, an especially important and historic event that had just occurred hundreds of miles to the south of the Normandy landing.
Ask Rufus: Memorial Day
More than 24 cities and towns claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. As the day to honor and remember those who made the supreme sacrifice for their country, its roots go deep into many places. It evolved out of a common practice of placing flowers on soldiers’ graves.
Ask Rufus: The Confederate Monument
On Saturday the process of dismantling and moving the Confederate monument that has stood in front of the Lowndes County Courthouse since 1912 began.
Ask Rufus: A Lost Choctaw Silver Mine?
Three years ago I wrote a column about a lost Choctaw silver mine in the Columbus or Macon area.
Ask Rufus: A Basket of Sorrows
In the 1970s, I found an old Choctaw basket in the attic of my great aunt Marcella Sykes Billups Richards‘ home in Columbus. It was not a tourist-trade basket but a well-made, reinforced work basket more than 100 years old.
Ask Rufus: Walking Through an Architectural History of Columbus
The South Side Historic District in Columbus is an architectural gem with about 250 homes on the National Register of Historic Places.
Ask Rufus: Easter Dinner
Most Christians today will celebrate Easter, enjoying a traditional meal at one of the year’s most important family gathering times.
Ask Rufus: Treasures in the Garden
It’s spring and many people are planting flower and vegetable gardens in their yards.
Ask Rufus: The Lost World of Plymouth Bluff
I have often written about John Pitchlynn and Fort Smith at Plymouth Bluff during the Creek Indian War of 1813-14 and the French army that camped there in 1736, but what fascinated me about the bluff when I was a child was fossils.
Ask Rufus: The Story a Picture Tells
Cherry Dunn came by my house a couple of months ago and showed me an interesting photo that she had. It was a tintype photo that had been passed down through her family from 150 years ago.
Ask Rufus: The tragic past of Black Creek
A headline in the April 27, 1839, Columbus Democrat read, “Daring and Atrocious Murder.” The news account began, “One of the most daring and outrageous acts of villainy in the annals of crime was perpetuated a few miles from our town.”
Ask Rufus: Marking A Pathway To Freedom
I’ve written before about how the Riverwalk is not only a touch of natural beauty at the edge of downtown but also a place steeped in history. Much of that history is the Black history of Columbus.
Ask Rufus: Franklin Academy Turns 200
The origin of Franklin Academy goes back to the chartering of Columbus as a Mississippi town.
Columbus was first officially recognized as a town on Dec. 6, 1819, but as the Town of Columbus, Alabama.
Ask Rufus: The Great Freshet of 1847
I’ve written before about the Tombigbee flood of 1847.
It is considered the worst flood ever recorded along the upper Tombigbee. It washed away almost the entire towns of Colbert, West Port and Nashville in what was then Lowndes County.
Ask Rufus: Rooting Hogs and Courting Frogs
I recently gave an 1882 book, “Minstrel Songs Old and New,” to the Black Prairie Blues Museum in West Point. The book contains a fascinating collection of popular music from the mid-1800s.
